Lesson 9

Simple Sanskrit – Lesson 9

सरलं संस्कृतम् – नवमः (९) पाठः  |

Mention of past tense was made in the previous Lesson 8,

1. in the context of the question, “How many people were there ?” कति जनाः आसन् ?
2. also in the context “The proposal was accepted by some people.”  प्रस्तावः कतिभिश्चित् जनैः स्वीकृतः |
3. There is past tense also in the sentence विष्णुः त्रेधा निदधे पदम् i.e. विष्णु put his foot at three places.
4. Also in “I had wings grown on me” संजातपक्षः अभवम् |
5. Also in “In how many pieces did the wood-cutter break the log ?” दारुकर्मिणा दारुः कतिशः विभक्तः ?

Past tense in these five examples can be classified into 2 classes,

• In sentences 1, 3 and 4 there is a verb inflected in past tense.

• In sentences 2 and 5, स्वीकृतः (= was accepted) and विभक्तः (literally, ‘was broken’) are verbal derivatives, which serve the function of verb. Hence no verb is explicit.

This concept of verbal derivative धातुसाधित is a great concept. It makes the construction so crisp and simple !

As can be seen, स्वीकृतः (= was accepted) and विभक्तः (literally, ‘was broken’) have passive voice in-built. Such verbal derivative धातुसाधित with past tense and passive voice in-built is called as Past Passive Participle (ppp). Even in sentence 4 there is a ppp संजात. Use of ppp’s is quite commonplace in Sanskrit. It is often readily recognizable from the ending त. The word धातुसाधित is itself a ppp :-) !

In passive voice actual doer, the subject of active voice is mentioned with the preposition ‘by’. For example,

• “The proposal was accepted by some people.” The subject doing ‘accepting (or acceptance)’ is ‘some people’. In passive it gets the preposition ‘by’. So, here we have ‘by some people’.
• In Sanskrit, function of the preposition ‘by’ is served by Third case तृतीया विभक्ति. कतिभिश्चित् जनैः are in Third case, here plural.
• In “दारुकर्मिणा दारुः कतिशः विभक्तः ?” (In how many pieces was the log broken by the woodcutter ?) ‘by the woodcutter’ दारुकर्मिणा also is in Third case.

As can be seen, ppp’s are adjectives.

• In प्रस्तावः कतिभिश्चित् जनैः स्वीकृतः the ppp स्वीकृतः is adjective of प्रस्तावः.
• In दारुकर्मिणा दारुः कतिशः विभक्तः the ppp विभक्तः is adjective of दारुः.
• Between adjective and qualified noun the rule यल्लिङ्गं  यद्वचनं  या  च  विभक्तिर्विशेष्यस्य । तल्लिङ्गं  तद्वचनं  सा  च  विभक्तिर्विशेषणस्यापि ।। applies.
• As I have been emphasizing, in प्रस्तावः कतिभिश्चित् जनैः स्वीकृतः the noun प्रस्तावः is at the beginning and the adjective स्वीकृतः is at the end. But that does not matter. Which noun is qualified by the adjective is obvious from the fact that both प्रस्तावः and स्वीकृतः are masculine, first case, singular.
• Likewise, in दारुकर्मिणा दारुः कतिशः विभक्तः both दारुः and विभक्तः are masculine, first case, singular.

Another interesting point about ppp. Will there be a ppp of an intransitive verb ? The question arises, because in English, there cannot be passive voice of intransitive verbs. This is no problem in Sanskrit ! A commonplace example is of verb ‘to go’. In English ‘to go’ is intransitive. Sanskrit धातु for ‘to go’ is गम्. Its ppp is गत. In Sanskrit the place which is gone to or the way or path which is gone by are taken as objects. For example, for the sake of understanding the charm of Sanskrit ‘I went to school’ should be put in passive voice as ‘The school was gone to by me’. Then it becomes simple to put it in Sanskrit. मया पाठशाला गता | So we have a sweet, simple sentence in Sanskrit for translation of ‘I went to school’ by using a ppp, combining therein the past tense and the passive voice.

This brings to mind an interesting quote महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः This quote has been discussed in detail in Lesson No. 58 at http://slabhyankar.wordpress.com/ In the context of ppp, we have in this quote गतः which is adjective of पन्थाः. Actually this quote is interesting, because except for येन, all the other 4 out of 5 words are masculine, first case, singular पुंल्लिङ्गम् प्रथमा विभक्तिः एकवचनम्.
महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः –

• महाजनो = महाजन: masculine, first case, singular of noun महाजन
• येन = masculine, third case, singular of pronoun यत्
• गतः = masculine, first case, singular of ppp गत
• स = स: = masculine, first case, singular of pronoun तत्
• पन्थाः = masculine, first case, singular of noun पथिन्. Note this is a consonant (न्)-ending प्रातिपदिक, meaning ‘path, way’

Meaning of महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः can be interpreted in two different ways, depending upon two different modes of syntax or two different sequences for arranging the words.

1. महाजनो येन गतः, स पन्थाः = The path or the way, the great people went, is (the path).
   • meaning The way (to go by) is the way (by which) great people went.
2. महाजनो येन स पन्थाः गतः = Great is the person, who went that way.

The quote is actually from an episode in श्रीमन्महाभारतम् It is the answer given by युधिष्ठिर in reply to a question “कः पन्थाः ?” by यक्ष, who claimed to be the master of a lake and would not allow thirsty युधिष्ठिर to partake of the water, unless युधिष्ठिर would answer a few questions. Complete answer of युधिष्ठिर was –

तर्कोऽप्रतिष्ठः श्रुतयो विभिन्नाः ।

नैको मुनिर्यस्य मतं प्रमाणम् ।

धर्मस्य तत्त्वं निहितं गुहायाम् ।

महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः ॥

(Meaning – Science of Logic is not definitive; the scriptures are many and varied; there is no one sage, whose saying can be taken as the norm; code of righteous conduct is enshrined in cave (or in mystery). Hence the way to go is the way a great person has gone by.)

Is this too much of ppp and the passive voice in-built therein ? One need not be overawed by the passive voice of ppp. Sanskrit provides an option of an active voice participle also, and in past tense. Active Past Participle (app) is derived from ppp by affixing a suffix वत् to the ppp. For example गतवत् is app derived from ppp गत. The procedure is simple.

Table 9-1

Use of ppp and app